Lunara and Major Awards

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

1) I'm actually willing to look at this, and maybe lower the award to a Greater or something. We'll see.

Hi Grumpy. I just wanted to chime in and suggest that anything that requires an application shouldn't require a reward at all. Now we have had this back and forth often enough to know that your main response is going to be "The amount of raksasha applications alone would be staggering and way too much work," so I have a preemptive suggestion. When a slot opens up (assuming you keep slots) you guys decide on a 24 or 48 hour period where enough of you are prepared for it and accept applications. Similar to how you do the dm applications, but a tighter window.

The reason I think this is a good idea is because I'm sure I'm not the only player who sees some of these things tied to a 5% and has a few cool ideas I would like to run past you guys but would never dedicate the time to grinding out an award. And now, even if I had the time, I couldn't do it anyways with the changes. That means that the applications you are reading are likely not going to be the best story tellers for that particular thing, they are just doing it because they can even if they have no real inspiration to play with a talking sword. I realize that the current system is intended to weed out just that, but I'm sure it's not perfect, and it does nothing for the guy who will never get a 5% no matter how many years he plays here but has a great idea for the sword, ect.

And for the jumping beans, I'm not playing at the moment and probably won't be until the new year again, so this is not a thought of self-interest.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I think that whoever wins this sword is going to receive some interesting reactions from other esteemed members of this fine playerbase

lol

and not in the way that they expect

I would think less of anyone who did this. If you don't like the sword go and do something else, don't grief the player.

[Felmilk]

How long until the sword ends up ERPing in the Underdark?

[Purplemyst]

1) I'm actually willing to look at this, and maybe lower the award to a Greater or something. We'll see.

Hi Grumpy. I just wanted to chime in and suggest that anything that requires an application shouldn't require a reward at all. Now we have had this back and forth often enough to know that your main response is going to be "The amount of raksasha applications alone would be staggering and way too much work," so I have a preemptive suggestion. When a slot opens up (assuming you keep slots) you guys decide on a 24 or 48 hour period where enough of you are prepared for it and accept applications. Similar to how you do the dm applications, but a tighter window.

The reason I think this is a good idea is because I'm sure I'm not the only player who sees some of these things tied to a 5% and has a few cool ideas I would like to run past you guys but would never dedicate the time to grinding out an award. And now, even if I had the time, I couldn't do it anyways with the changes. That means that the applications you are reading are likely not going to be the best story tellers for that particular thing, they are just doing it because they can even if they have no real inspiration to play with a talking sword. I realize that the current system is intended to weed out just that, but I'm sure it's not perfect, and it does nothing for the guy who will never get a 5% no matter how many years he plays here but has a great idea for the sword, ect.

And for the jumping beans, I'm not playing at the moment and probably won't be until the new year again, so this is not a thought of self-interest.

I couldn't disagree more with this. Lunara in my opinion should be reward based. She is essentially the best and rarest thing on offer. The application process is to ensure she's roleplayed to a high standard I'd assume.

This is coming from someone with no major or greater rewards in their bank.

[Dr. B]

Gating the application behind a major award does not ensure she is roleplayed to the highest standard; in fact, it does quite the opposite, by significantly constricting the pool of applicants. I understand that the DMs do not want to be flooded with applications but I really think they should consider lowering it to a normal award.

[MalKalz]

It’s been lowered to a greater and will not creep beneath that at this time. And it’s never been about application numbers ever.

[Liareth]

Is the sword restricted to Good & Neutral alignments only or can Evil PCs apply for the sword as well?

No alignment restriction!

See, I like the personality of the weapon, because I feel like you could easily draw out a meaningful story with it. Rather than characterizing it as "jealousy," you can emphasize the root behind the jealousy: Insecurity, and emotional neediness. What would cause a sword to adopt those personality traits? There's gotta be some sort of tragedy to the character that informs this jealous behavior, and that's a concept that's fun to play with. How many times has she been overlooked and abandoned before she fell into your character's hands? What sort of hopelessness and loneliness must she have endured, living and sentient yet only ever a thing to be owned? Perhaps she is a dangerous weapon, but how vulnerable is she, really? And what kind of a character can you then craft to compliment these concepts?

This is actually exactly what we were going for. She's not intended to be a jealous tsundere sword gf, she's a newly created magical weapon who is deeply insecure, and therefore jealous of other weapons, because of her youth. If her wielder doesn't like that angle, they can accelerate her growth in a different direction! They have the power, after all!

It doesn't sound like there's a shortage of candidates so much as a small pool of qualified ones atm. But to throw my own two cents in, I just think it's a bad value which is something I care about if I'm a player who doesnt roll for rewards often (or even just a regular player given the gating now). The allusion to being expected to eventually pass the weapon on devalues Lunara a lot and imo this is a weakness of tying it to an award because the scarce nature of such an award is what makes the value consideration a factor at all.

I totally get that. And for people like you, who want lasting power to their awards, it makes sense to feel this way; Lunara is a bad value proposition and you shouldn't apply. For people like me, who enjoy playing characters for relatively short periods of time (3-6 months at most) before rolling, a time limited item like this is excellent value. It's all about your perspective.

How long until the sword ends up ERPing in the Underdark?

https://i.imgur.com/V62NWAK.jpg

Gating the application behind a major award does not ensure she is roleplayed to the highest standard; in fact, it does quite the opposite, by significantly constricting the pool of applicants. I understand that the DMs do not want to be flooded with applications but I really think they should consider lowering it to a normal award.

GrumpyCat has recently announced that she's lowering it to a greater award. I think it's unlikely to go any lower.

[Felmilk]

https://i.imgur.com/V62NWAK.jpg

[Juuj]

Liareth, could we see some pictures of Lunara ? The Vfx and Item description ?

I’m sure there are other people as curious as me about that!

Thanks

[Liareth]

Liareth, could we see some pictures of Lunara ? The Vfx and Item description ?

I’m sure there are other people as curious as me about that!

Thanks

This is her portrait:



This is her description (first draft from the writing team, might change slightly):

This weapon rarely remains the same form for too long and yet no matter what shape she claims, the markings of a master’s work are apparent. Adamantine is prominent to her working, with mithril and polished wood from some ancient tree forming hilt or handle. And though their location may vary, engraved arcane runes pulse dimly with light akin to a beating heart.

[Draconic]: Teach her and treasure her. Protect her and let her protect you. And above all, love her.

Shaped into the weapon, whether cradling the blade of a sword, head of an axe, or embracing the handle of a bow, is the figurehead of a young woman. Her precise make is unclear; though she must be carved from wood or sculpted of ceramic, she looks uncannily lifelike. A flush of excitement turns tawny cheeks to sepia and her bright grey eyes glint with interest. Even the whirl of black hair dancing in waves about her shoulders speaks of eternal motion.

Joy infuses her delicately shaped features; even in stillness, a smile shines resplendent on her lips. But when she stirs, that eagerness is amplified tenfold. Her voice brims with curiosity and a consuming need to experience everything life has to offer. However, this joy is not the only emotion to surge forth; on occasion she stills with pouting lips, chin held high, and the spark of jealousy turning her eyes molten silver.

You can view all of the VFX at https://nwnlexicon.com/index.php?title=Vfx_imp and https://nwnlexicon.com/index.php?title=Vfx_fnf. There may be some Arelith-specific VFX that aren't listed here. The way it's implemented right now allows the wielder to spend some of Lunara's experience to select a VFX by entering the VFX number directly. This might change in the future if it turns out to be a terrible idea.

[Juuj]

Thanks for the reply! Both the profile pic and the bio look super cool! I’m really excited for the experiment to work out and for us to see more unique stuff like this populating the server.

You can view all of the VFX at https://nwnlexicon.com/index.php?title=Vfx_imp and https://nwnlexicon.com/index.php?title=Vfx_fnf. There may be some Arelith-specific VFX that aren't listed here. The way it's implemented right now allows the wielder to spend some of Lunara's experience to select a VFX by entering the VFX number directly. This might change in the future if it turns out to be a terrible idea.

As for the Vfx does this means, for instance, that I could spend some of the weapons xp to add the time stop VFX on weapon hit ? Is that it ?

Also, other than the Vfx what else does the weapon uses the xp for ?

Thanks!

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

1) I'm actually willing to look at this, and maybe lower the award to a Greater or something. We'll see.

Hi Grumpy. I just wanted to chime in and suggest that anything that requires an application shouldn't require a reward at all. Now we have had this back and forth often enough to know that your main response is going to be "The amount of raksasha applications alone would be staggering and way too much work," so I have a preemptive suggestion. When a slot opens up (assuming you keep slots) you guys decide on a 24 or 48 hour period where enough of you are prepared for it and accept applications. Similar to how you do the dm applications, but a tighter window.

The reason I think this is a good idea is because I'm sure I'm not the only player who sees some of these things tied to a 5% and has a few cool ideas I would like to run past you guys but would never dedicate the time to grinding out an award. And now, even if I had the time, I couldn't do it anyways with the changes. That means that the applications you are reading are likely not going to be the best story tellers for that particular thing, they are just doing it because they can even if they have no real inspiration to play with a talking sword. I realize that the current system is intended to weed out just that, but I'm sure it's not perfect, and it does nothing for the guy who will never get a 5% no matter how many years he plays here but has a great idea for the sword, ect.

And for the jumping beans, I'm not playing at the moment and probably won't be until the new year again, so this is not a thought of self-interest.

I couldn't disagree more with this. Lunara in my opinion should be reward based. She is essentially the best and rarest thing on offer. The application process is to ensure she's roleplayed to a high standard I'd assume.

This is coming from someone with no major or greater rewards in their bank.

I'm just going to expand on what Dr B said because he said the "focused on this topic" bit perfectly. The reward system is counter-productive to its intended goal. The main idea behind it is to incentivize people to move on to new characters, and maybe it was a good idea when people were taking two years to reach level 30. But now I can keep my super old characters and still have a roll ready in less than a month (probably closer to two weeks if I am being realistic and truly grinding it out), so it serves 0 purpose save to be a major factor in many of the issues discussed on these forums over the last few years verbatim.

Now, rewards are not going to go away. Apparently Irongron is working on a grind proof system or something, and here's to hoping he finds some sucess there. And when I suggested they do go away and replaced with an all-app system, the response I got was the sheer number of apps would be overwhelming to deal with. Enter the comment you responded too, which poses the question "If you have to app anyways, why bother with the useless reward system at all?" And yes, it goes into how these things should be driven by inspiration, not grinding and RNG. That's not to say that someone with a reward can't do a good job with one of these "reward + app" things, good players grind too. It's just the chances of matching the perfect concept with the things in question are astronomically bad as it stands now.

[The GrumpyCat]

"If you have to app anyways, why bother with the useless reward system at all?"

Simple. We don't want to be drowned in apps.

This isn't specific to Lunara, it stands in for all Vampires/Rakshasa too. When it comes to extremely rare, but (hopefully?) coveted things, we don't want to open the floodgates to everyone, simply because I don't want to have to plough though fifty applications.

We recently lowered it down to greater to allow a few others to apply, but I doubt it'll go any lower.

[magistrasa]

Am I allowed to ask how this is going? Because I've been curious about this little experiment since the day it got rolled out. I can't say I ever once saw or heard of Lunara interacting with the world, but I don't have a DM's omniscience. Is the character that first won the award still active? Did the mechanics all function as intended? Has the sword changed hands? Or was the project perhaps cut short due to complications with its implementation? I'm dying to know! What's the story so far with our sentient sword?

[MRFTW]

Very interested in an update on the sword, too. I think it's a very cool idea and really hope it's worked as intended.

[MalKalz]

I believe it remains unfinished. Liareth became busy with other things and we have not pushed on its status. So it has not yet entered the world as far as I know.